Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 4, 1871

No. 118.

Mr. Washburne to Mr. Fish

No. 395.]

Legation of the United States, Paris, March 23, 1871. (Received April 6.)

Sir: I addressed you a somewhat hurried dispatch, No. 394, on Sunday afternoon last, which was forwarded to Mr. Moran, at London, to be transmitted to you by open mail. The intelligence which I sent to you by telegraph of the shooting of General Vinoy was Incorrect, though I had the most positive assurance that it was true. The next day (20th) Paris was very quiet, and no very great number of national guards were to be seen in the most frequented part of the city, many people hoping that the worst was over, and that there would be a solution of the difficulties in some unforeseen manner. I went out to Versailles on that day to see what was the situation there. The National Assembly had met on that day, and nearly all the deputies were present. Very little was accomplished. I was unable to see Mr. Jules Favre, and I returned to Paris in the evening. There were large numbers of the troops of the line (estimated at forty thousand) in and about Versailles, but great doubts were expressed whether they would prove true to the government in the event of a collision with the insurrectionary national guard. On Monday evening some fifty Americans gave a public dinner in honor of Lieutenant General Sheridan at the Hotel Splendide, and everything in that central portion of the city was profoundly tranquil that night. On Tuesday there was a sort of dead, fearful calm in the city, and a feeling of great uneasiness. In the afternoon there was a considerable demonstration made by persons calling themselves friends of order, men of property and character, who went entirely unarmed. The effect of this demonstration was to inspire some confidence among the friends of order, and to exasperate the insurgents. It was determined to repeat the demonstration, and yesterday a shocking occurence took place, which has created the intensest excitement in the city. An interesting account of the affair is given by Mr. Moore, the assistant secretary of legation, who was eye-witness, and which I send herewith. In his letter to me Mr. Moore does not allude to the killing of an American citizen. On the dead body of this man there was found a passport issued by Mr. Seward to George S. Hanna, but he had cards upon his person bearing the name of George H. Teniel, and I learn he is a young man from St. Louis, who had been in the service of the franc-tireurs during the war here. I ascertained that he had been at our legation in company with young Mr. Chouteau, of St. Louis, and I went to the banking-house of Bowles Bros. & Co., this afternoon, to look at the corpse, but I could not recognize it as of any person I had ever seen before. General Bead took charge of the body, and placed it in the hands of the friends of the deceased in Paris. I again went to Versailles yesterday to make final arrangements for changing my official residence to that place. I procured an apartment for my legation, and shall take up my residence (nominally at least) to-morrow. The business of the legation here is now very large, keeping us all constantly engaged, and my own presence in the city at this critical period seems almost indispensable. I shall, therefore, come into Paris from Versailles about every day, in the interest of my countrymen and of the Germans, with whose protection I am still charged, and whose situation is becoming more and more precarious. This removal to Versailles will involve quite a large additional expense, in regard to which I would be glad to be advised.

I was down in the city at one o’clock this afternoon, and everything was very quiet. The friends of law and order have been greatly strengthened and the number of the national guards who are loyal to the interests of order is increasing very rapidly. Ten thousand of them are now guarding the Bank of France, and they hold to-day the mayoralty of the second arrondissement.

In my 394, I spoke of an American who was an aid of General Chauzy, and who had been arrested on his arrival in Paris. I took immediate measures to ascertain where he was, in order to have him released. I sent Mr. McKean, my acting private secretary, in search of him on Sunday afternoon last, but he was unable to find out anything about him. The man, however, turned up at my legation this afternoon, while I was engaged in waiting this dispatch. His name is J. Schenowsky, and he was late brevet captain in the Fifth United States Cavalry. He resigned his position in the Army to come to fight for France, and here he became the chief of squadron attached to the cavalry division of the 21st army corps, and was placed upon the staff of General Chauzy. Chauzy himself arrived in the train from Orleans on Saturday night, and was arrested by the national guard and taken to prison. Captain Schenowsky arrived by the next train at three o’clock on Sunday morning, and on his arrival he and several others, Frenchmen, were arrested and taken off by the same guard. He was kept a close prisoner until one o’clock on Sunday afternoon, when, showing his commission, which bore upon its face that he had formerly been an officer in the United States Army, he was released. Feeling very anxious about his old commander Chauzy, who he esteems highly as a brave soldier, and whose misfortune he considers attributable solely to the character of his troops, on Monday last he attempted to visit him, and even after receiving an authority for that purpose he was arrested again by the national guard and taken to the prefecture, where he was kept in “durance vile” for some six or seven hours, and then again released. Another man, a Frenchman, who was long in our service during the rebellion, Mr. Ulric de Fruvielle, who, I believe, was in the engineer service of General Warren’s corps in the Army of the Potomac, and who has been serving France since the war, was also arrested by the national guard, but I learn that he has escaped and that he has been condemned to death for “contumacy.”

Mr. McKean has given me a very interesting account of his searches for Captain Schenowsky, which brings vividly to mind the scenes of the first revolution. He says that in company with two French gentlemen he went first to the prison where Chauzy had been incarcerated, in the avenue d’Italie. It was in one of the most wretched quarters of Montrouge. The streets of the neighborhood were all barricaded, furnished with cannon, and full of drunken and ferocious-looking men. Having entered the prison and stated the object of their visit, two captains of the troops stationed there got into a most violent, dispute as to, which of them were in authority. The one who had actual possession of the key was beastly drunk, but he finally surrendered it to the other, and they were admitted into the prison. They found there only one man, a Mr. Edmond Turquet, a member of the National Assembly from the department of the Aisne, a young and gallant-looking man, who had fought with brilliant courage under Chauzy, and received three several wounds. He was on his way to the meeting of the assembly at Versailles, and was arrested at the same time as General Chauzy. Captain Schenowsky had not been there, but Chauzy had, and had been removed to the prison de la Santé. Here they learned that on his way to this last prison Chauzy had been fallen upon by the mob, kicked, cuffed, and beaten with canes and sticks, and threatened with instant death. In making further searches for Captain Schenowsky, they went to the prefecture of police, between eight and nine o’clock at night. All the usual entrances were barred, and access to the building was obtained by a small side door, which led into the basement. There they were ushered into a little, dark, dismal room, for the purpose of obtaining permission to see the prefect. Here a most extraordinary spectacle was presented. The room was densely packed with soldiers of the most sinister look. A court-martial was being held. Three desperate and savage-looking men, in the uniform of officers of the national guard, were sitting at a small table in one corner of the room, which was lighted by a diminutive oil lamp that stood upon the table. Before this terrible tribunal was arraigned a respectable-appearing young man in citizen dress. As they entered, the tribunal was upon the point of pronouncing judgment, but in the confusion it was impossible to hear what it was. From the vehement protestations of the young man and the intense agony in which he appeared to be, they had but little doubt that his sentence was death. He was immediately taken in charge by four soldiers and hustled out of the room, probably to be shot. Finding themselves in such a crowd, they did not dare to make any inquries in reference to what the sentence really was. Mr. McKean went to the prefecture the next day in farther search of Captain Schenowsky, and while there three respectable men were brought in charged with wearing a badge of blue ribbon. They were immediately sent down to this self-constituted revolutionary tribunal in the cellar, to undergo a mock trial, and very likely to be condemned and shot. It is only, by visits like these that the world will ever get an inkling of the terrible atrocities which have been committed during this new reign of terror.

You will have seen by the telegraphic dispatches, and by the newspapers I send you, the proceedings of the National Assembly at Versailles. Never did a heavier weight rest upon the shoulders of any deliberative assembly than weighs upon the body at Versailles at this time, and it remains to be seen whether it can save France. The whole aspect now is such as to inspire every man in France with terror. The state of things in Paris to-day is without a parallel in its history. Since Saturday evening last there has been not even the shadow of a government in this city of two millions of people. There is nothing but a direction, whose behests are enforced by the power of the insurgent national guard. How far this thing will go, and how it is to end, it is useless for me to predict, for you will know by telegraph of results as they occur, long before this reaches you, and I fear that which I am writing will be old news and of little interest.

I have. &c.,

E. B. WASHBURNE.

Mr. Frank Moore to Mr. Washburne

Legation of the United States, Paris, March 22, 1871.

Sir: Following your instructions, I have the honor to submit a report of what I personally saw at the collision which took place this afternoon in the rue de la Paix, between a body of insurgent national guards and a large crowd of persons belonging to the law-and-order party of this city.

At half past one o’clock, as I turned the corner of the rue Neuve des Capucines entering the rue de la Paix, I saw a large body of men, composed about equally of persons in the uniform of the national guard and civilians, coming into the last-named street, at its junction with the Place de l’Opéra. The crowd appeared to be led by a few under-officers of the national guard and about twenty or thirty armed soldiers. Whether the latter belonged to the insurgents, and were being driven before the crowd, I was unable at the moment to determine, but it is now understood that they formed a part of the law-and-order party. The civilians and unarmed soldiers carried ordinary walking sticks in most instances. Fearing the consequences of remaining in the crowd, I entered a jeweler’s shop, No. 10 rue de la Paix, from which I could see all that transpired in that thoroughfare between the rue Neuve des Capucines and rue Neuve des Petites Champs, but was unable to look into the Place Vendôme, where a considerable body of the insurgent national guard was posted. Across the rue de la Paix a line of the insurgents was drawn at the junction of the rue Neuve des Capucines, and two cannon were stationed immediately in their rear. As I entered the jeweler’s store the crowd pressed by, making loud cries of “Arm, arm yourselves!” and “Vive la république!” the soldiers loading their guns and the others brandishing their canes high in the air, as they surged on toward the Place Vendôme. In a moment more the crowd seemed to come to a stand, when I went through a rear door of the store and entered the courtyard of the premises. Finding the door of the main entrance to the rue de la Paix partly open I went to it, and discovered on the sidewalk General Chetlain, the American consul at Brussels, among the crowd. I beckoned him in, as another forward movement of the law-and-order party had then commenced, and returned to the jeweler’s store. The crowd pressed on more furiously than before, filling the air with cries of “Vive la république!” “Vive l’ordre!” and “Arm, army ourselves!” In about two minutes a single gun was fired, and in a moment more a general firing of small arms-commenced, which continued about ten minutes. The firing was very irregular, and did not appear to be by platoon. The cannon were not fired. Looking from the store in which I was, I saw seven men fall to the pavement, two of whom were killed instantly. A person in citizen’s dress who attempted to succor a wounded man was shot down and killed. About two minutes after the general fusilade had ceased a single shot was fired immediately in front of my position. General Chetlain tells me that this shot was fired at a man already wounded, and who was crawling up on the sidewalk. As soon as quiet had somewhat returned I again went into the court-yard and ascended to the first story of the apartment, from which I could look up and down the rue de la Paix its entire length. In the window of the parlor of Lieutenant General Sheridan, at the Westminster Hotel, immediately opposite, I discovered General Merritt and Mr. Paul S. Forbes, who must, from their position, have been able to see all that was going on. Immediately after I saw General Chetlain safe and inside the court-yard into which I had called him at the moment of the second advance of the crowd, and he joined myself and a friend. We remained in the first story of the apartment about fifteen minutes, during which time we saw the dead bodies of two men lying on the opposite sidewalk. Both of these bodies were carried inside the insurgent lines at the Place Vendôme. General Chetlain informed me that a young man who was standing in the rue de la Paix, a few feet from him, was shot through the arm and had his wound dressed in the rear court-yard of the building in which we had taken refuge. Comparative order having been restored, General Chetlain, my friend, and myself left the house and soon gained the boulevards, from which place we experienced no difficulty in returning home. As we passed No. 12 rue de la Paix, we saw the body of a dead old man, whose head had been terribly mutilated by a shot, and who had evidently been shot down on the edge of the sidewalk, for the marks of his crawling to the place where he died gave sufficient proof of that fact.

I have, &c.,

FRANK MOORE, Assistant Secretary of Legation.